The basic Transylvanian Skirmish set comes with 4 stands of household Calvary, 4 stands of light household Calvary, and 4 stands of mounted/dismounted haiduks, and 1 captain. This boxed set builds a force automatically at the FSP 6 level. This is an excellent force as the household Calvary have excellent morale and excellent skill level but more importantly they have pistols and a Lance making them extremely potent on the charge. This is also on top of the fact that they have an excellent extra move on the charge. Very few units can stand up to a charge by these Calvary. The light household Calvary fills a role similar to Cossack Style Calvary as found in the Polish lists. The household light Calvary use their bow and carbine weapons to harass the enemy at distance and then can charge when the enemy has softened up. The haiduks fill a dragoon role in the army and make an excellent anchor for your force. The listed self also has 2 excellent special rules the 1st is “take that Hill” and the 2nd is “ambush”.

The “take that Hill” special allows the player to place 4 bases of dragoons or 2 bases of cavalry on this hill. It is important when sitting up the battlefield at the Transylvanian player places a hill somewhere in his half of the table to optimize this as it can allow you to place your force closer to the enemy and objectives. I prefer to use the haiduk/dragoons dismounted in this role to force the fight on my opponent.

The “ambush” special rule is also another excellent option. For this I like to take the FSP 7 or +1 FSP to also add the Lieutenant, option to get the 2 extra bases of light household cavalry. This way I can take a 4 base block of light household cavalry and a 4 base block of household cavalry, the 4 bases of haiduks and that 2 base extra light household cavalry can fill that “ambush” role. This way I have a hard hitting lancer unit and a ranged support light household cavalry force to be my hammer and the haiduks as a firebase “anvil”. The second “ambush” 2 base light household cavalry unit is my harasser unit in the enemy back field. Also in addition to the morale test to weaken a unit you plan to charge with your “hammer” units, you can use this unit to get some flank charges or to run down units in flight.

Take all this together and you can set up a very favorable engagement for your army. Remember to use the hill and forward haiduks as a good fire base and your ambushing light household cavalry banner to support your household lancer cavalry and light household 4 base cavalry block.

The next Army list we plan to show case is the Transylvanian Saxon Territorial Defense force. This can be found in the downloads section of the By Fire and Sword website. This Army has some amazing special rules. It has the "On Their own Land" , "Take that Hill", "Ambush", "They know each Stone", and the important "Defensive Skirmish".

When looking at this Army list, this sweet spot appears to be the FSP4 level plus +1 FSP for the Foot Captain. This makes the force a total of FSP 5. You could then add in 1 or 2 cannons to make it FSP 6 or 7 respectively. You want to try to make your force smaller than your opponent’s so as to take the benefit of the Defensive Skirmish rule and scenario table.So for our 7 FSP points we get 12 bases of Saxon/Town infantry 4 bases of Chimney Cavalry and 4 bases of Comitatus Cavalry, A 2 order commander, a 1 order captain, and 2 cannon. When picking the infantry I prefer the Saxons as they have better morale at 5 and when combined with a 12 base formation that makes it a 7 and attach the Captain to make it an 8. The captain can then issue a free order to that unit so that 1 command point can effectively make that unit have a morale of 9! This makes them a very large unbreakable blob that can soak up hits and really hold an objective. I also tend to rolls horribly and need all the bonuses I can get. Also the base morale of 5 makes it easier to recover wounds lost. Now if you take Town infantry you get access to the Musket and range 10/30 and an armor reduction of 1/3. Taking the Town infantry is great if you are a player who likes to reach out and smack the enemy and keep him at distance and restrict his movement. With an armor reduction of -1 at range 30 and -3 at optimal range, armored units will think twice to get close and light armored units will try to avoid this blob of 12 stands. Another thing to keep in mind is that this large block of 12 stands has a very large foot print on the battle field and you can use this to your advantage tactically. Each base has a 4cm frontage and that can make for a long line measuring 48cm! That is more than a third of the table width. Use this with terrain and you can effectively shut down a large portion of the battle field. There are many ways to use this foot print and some sneaky tactics and I will leave you to discover these out on your own. I don’t want all my secrets out in case we meet on the fields at Wilanów.

The cavalry arm of this force is there to fill any holes in your line and to engage the enemy on your terms and condition. I like to use the cavalry along with my cannons on a flank opposite the infantry so that my cannons can protect my one flank of the infantry and support my cavalry. The infantry’s other flank is on the table edge so it is already protected. Cannon fire is great to soften up the target for a charge. You need a soft target as the Chimney and Comitatus cavalry are skill 3. You need to make sure your charge has impetus and Chimney have pistols, so you could be hitting on a 6 for Chimney or 5 for Comitatus. Lances on both help make it easier to survive the strikes back by hopefully killing a base or two to lower the amount of attacks back as you will be facing Poor tactical discipline in the combat resolution step. Make sure you are ahead in the fight.

The last thing I need to stress with this army list is to play the scenario. Remember this is a defensive force and a holding force in the scenarios. It needs to be played as such and use its strengths to delay and deny the enemy. We hope you enjoyed this discussion as much as Alisha and I had making

Transylvania has two really strong army lists: pillaging raid and polish-transylvanian skirmish from "Armies...". Pillaging raid is really cost effective, fo 7 FP you get 2 hard hitting units with lances + some light cavalry/dragoons. Polish-transyvanian skirmish is much more FP expensive, but you get a mix of hard hitting units with lances and very flexible polish cavalry. I can't say if infantry- based skirmish is good or not - i never played against it.

very interested in the Polish-Trans skirmish from Armies ...but want to do a completely Trans force first ... was sure on the Combat force ...but now all this talk im examining the Pillage ... I guess the Comitas is a hit or miss each game being insubordinate ...but I guess you could attach to get the free order and one less ...

anyone have any experience with the Seimini? THese look money on paper

Mounted haiduks are deffinitely more mobile. But Seimini's are veterans and have better guns with them, moreover they special morale rule makes them harder to beat. I remember a game in which I was defending a village and seimini shooted out many of my troops IN BUILDINGS!